Deep Snow and Soggy Tundra

---

Managed to take my glacier hike in the Arctic after all. Six hours of slogging through knee deep snow and sinking into ankle deep soggy tundra. Even with the conditions, it was worth it. I was originally scheduled for tomorrow's tour, but today's tour was 1 person short, so the guide let me join today's group. Chalk another one up for Monkey. He is definitely a good luck charm. Only 8 people plus the guide are allowed, so I was very fortunate. The guides all carry both a pistol and a rifle. The pistol is always loaded, and they?ll load the rifle if conditions warrant. No polar bears, so she never loaded it. At one point we were surrounded by a herd of reindeer. I don't know it there's a species specific to Svalbard, but they were smaller than I expected. The local town, Longyearbyen, is quite barren. I can't believe what it must be like in the cold night of winter. I don't know the exact length, but the winter night must last for months at this latitude.

On the cruise out of Isfjorden, I did see a pair of polar bears from the ship. See is a relative term. Spot may be more appropriate. That's 2 out of 3 though. Guess that means I need to come back. Next time I'll rent a car and do it right. Absolutely great roads here, and almost no traffic. Where there's not a road, there's a ferry.

North Cape tomorrow.

---

Photos

The Intrepid Band of Explorers
This is the group I hiked across the glacier with. Is the guide with the rifle visible?

Monkey resting on the glacier
Monkey says it's hard work to be carried up a glacier. Here he is resting on a rock that acually sits on top of the glacial ice

Reindeer Herd
They circled us for about 15 minutes.

Comments

[anonymous]

Hope you had some warm boots!
Guess you are not missing the 100-degree heat. Sloshing in the snow sounds pretty good about now.